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components on its head. “The industry has thus far

been using what is known as the ‘top-down’ method.

Large portions are cut away from the base material until the

desired structure is achieved. Soon this will no longer be

possible due to continual miniaturization.” The new approach

is instead oriented on nature: molecules that develop

complex structures through self-assembling processes.

Golden Bridges Between Electrodes

The elements that thereby develop would be substantially

smaller than today’s tiniest computer chip components.

Smaller circuits could theoretically be produced with less

effort. There is, however, a problem: “Genetic matter

doesn’t conduct a current particularly well,” points out Erbe.

He and his colleagues have therefore placed gold-plated

nanoparticles on the DNA wires using chemical bonds.

Using a “top-down” method – electron beam lithography –

they subsequently make contact with the individual wires

electronically. “This connection between the substantially

larger electrodes and the individual DNA structures have

come up against technical difficulties until now. By combining

the two methods, we can resolve this issue. We could thus

very precisely determine the charge transport through

individual wires for the first time,” adds Erbe.

As the tests of the Dresden researchers have shown, a

current is actually conducted through the gold-plated wires

– it is, however, dependent on the ambient temperature.

“The charge transport is simultaneously reduced as the

temperature decreases,” describes Erbe. “At normal room

temperature, the wires function well, even if the electrons

must partially jump from one gold particle to the next

because they haven’t completely melded together. The

distance, however, is so small that it currently doesn’t

even show up using the most advanced microscopes.” In

order to improve the conduction, Artur Erbe’s team aims to

incorporate conductive polymers between the gold particles.

The physicist believes the metallization process could also

still be improved.

He is, however, generally pleased with the results: “We

could demonstrate that the gold-plated DNA wires conduct

energy. We are actually still in the basic research phase,

which is why we are using gold rather than a more cost-

efficient metal. We have, nevertheless, made an important

stride, which could make electronic devices based on DNA

possible in the future.”

Publication: B. Teschome, S. Facsko, T. Schönherr, J.

Kerbusch, A. Keller, A. Erbe: Temperature-Dependent

Charge Transport through Individually Contacted DNA

Origami-Based Au Nanowires, in Langmuir, 2016, 32 (40),

pp 10159–10165 (DOI: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.6b01961)

Xilinx, Inc. (NASDAQ:XLNX)

today unveiled details for new

16nm Virtex® UltraScale+™

FPGAs with HBM and CCIX

technology. Containing the

highest memory bandwidth

available,

these

HBM-

enabled FPGAs offer 20X

higher memory bandwidth

relative to a DDR4 DIMM

and 4X less power per bit

versus competing memory

technologies. The new

devices are architected to support the higher memory

needs of compute-intensive applications such as machine

learning, Ethernet connectivity, 8K video, and radar.

They also contain CCIX IP, enabling cache-coherent

Xilinx Unveils Details for New 16nm Virtex UltraScale+ FPGAs with

High Bandwidth Memory and CCIX Technology

acceleration

to

any

CCIX-enabled processor

to address compute

acceleration applications.

“In package integration

of DRAM represents a

massive leap forward in

memory bandwidth for

high end FPGA-enabled

applications,” said Kirk

Saban, senior director of

FPGA and SoC Product

Management at Xilinx.

“HBM integration in our industry leading devices provides

a clear path to multi-terabit memory bandwidth and our

acceleration enhanced technology will enable efficient

heterogeneous computing for our customers’ most

New-Tech Magazine Europe l 17